1, 2, 3's

Well, it's that time again... tax preparation season. All I can say is thank god for inventing accountants. I used to do my taxes on my own and after all of the events of this past year... moving from MD to VA, selling investments to buy our new house, etc. I am so grateful that we have assistance - even of the paid variety!

Part of the reason is that I've come to realize that I now lack the ability to count past 10 - or maybe I can make it to 20 (after all most Sesame Street episodes feature a number of the day between 10 and 20 and I'm not ashamed to admit that I watch enough Sesame Street to know that!). I spend most of my days counting only to 3 for Jonah - how many trees do you see, how many grapes are left in the bowl, etc. So when our accountant and I spoke today and she started talking about fair market values (albeit in the form of an acronym - FMV), reinvested dividends, and capital gains and losses I found myself totally overwhelmed. Ahhhhhhhhh!

I've come to realize that being a mommy - really a parent of any variety - means starting your education all over again from scratch. Frankly, I'm looking forward to learning how to add, multiply and such again. And yes, dad, I remember that 9 times 7 is 63 and vice versa - thanks for grilling that one into my head! So let the counting begin and accountants beware... I will be back on your level in about 15-20 years.

Who's That?

I used to call my grandmother "who's that?" - she lived across the country in California and I didn't see her very often, but spoke with her on the phone often. My parents would hand me the phone and tell me that Grandma was on the other line - in response I would always say "who's that?" and it stuck.

It makes me think about how interesting our name choices are when we are able to pick what we would like to be called... for example Jonah has a Nonnie and Papi, a Grandma Red and Pika, and a Nana and Pop (lucky boy gets 3 sets of grandparents!). No one is simply Grandma and Grandpa.

Now that Jonah and his toddler friends are starting to speak (whether we understand them or not is another thing...) I struggle with what I would like to be called by his friends and what Jonah should call my adult friends. Am I Auntie Laura, Mrs. Harwin, Ms. Laura, or some other alternative? It almost becomes a question of identity! At the same time that I want to respect tradition and instill respect in younger generations by requesting to be called Mrs. Harwin, I struggle with my personal comfort with a more casual attitude and being referred to as Auntie Laura or Ms. Laura. And of course, now that I am an aunt to Jonah's Cousin Max, I can't seem to get comfortable with the idea of being anyone else's auntie. So I have chosen to be called Ms. Laura.

Of course when I run into a childhood friend's mother at the grocery store and call them Mrs. Last Name I will begin to question this all over again! I guess only time will tell.

ahhh... the "forgotten" blog...

Dearest blog followers,

I apologize. I have been remiss in my updates, but with good reason: holiday travels, a series of meetings, playing nurse to a husband and son who were feeling a little under-the-weather, and most importantly a babysitter on winter break from college! All of which has me out of my "usual" habits and re-evaluating how to spend my so-called free time.

We had a busy holiday season visiting family and seeing a few friends at the Outback Bowl in FL. The trip (I call them trips now and not vacations because they certainly aren't restful!) was fun and exhausting. When we returned to MD, I decided to hole up for a while and recharge. When I was revved up and ready to go I finally reached out to my friends in the area and am now back on the play date and lunch date circuit. Jonah and I have been running around the metro area catching up with both of our friends from near and far and have been having a blast seeing everyone!

Luckily, my dearest husband has been home more these last few weeks and I've been able to better balance a few minutes each day to do some usual "me" activities like showering and working out. :-) Which means I am having to re-evaluate how to spend my weekly afternoons off (aka babysitter Wednesdays which are back in full swing now that American University's winter break is over - phew!)... I am almost done with the requisite errand running and doctor appointments and have found myself wandering aimlessly through stores looking for things to buy and not finding anything I can justify spending the money on! Then I remembered this blog... my own personal mommy-therapy. So today, I came home a little early and managed to sneak into the office without being seen by Jonah.

I'm finding that I do spend countless hours thinking about what to write on here, but then by the time I finally get to sit down at the computer with 15 minutes or more to focus I seem to have lost all those ideas. I think I need to start a "blog" to keep up with my blogging! It's amazing how much my mind wanders more now than it did before I had a baby. Perhaps my next entry will be a stream of consciousness note... wouldn't that be insightful! That's it, I'm going to pull out an old blank journal and make use of it to keep track of my thoughts for my mommy-life-crisis therapy/blog sessions. Finally, a New Year's resolution I can keep up with! (I hope!)

With sincere gratitude for your patience,

Laura

Recent happenings

So, I've been working on this post for about a month now... life has just kept me running around too much to find time to finish writing and posting it. So, I apologize for the novella that's to follow.

To give you a brief overview of everything that's been happening in our family, let me present the following list:

1. Jonah had his first Halloween filled with parties galore

2. our family was struck by the illness fairy (a skin infection, two colds and bladder stones requiring surgery!)

3. I gave my annual lecture at AU's Arts Management program about corporate fundraising plus interviewed to hopefully sit on a grants advisory panel for Montgomery County

4. I hosted the Wild Women for a weekend gathering so we could continue our annual "getaway"

5. Thanksgiving, and to sum it all up...

6. Jonah's 1st birthday!

First of all our Halloween festivities were a blast. One of Jonah's good friend's from our waterbabies class hosted a fabulous Halloween and Harvest Fun party - imagine 10 babies dressed to the nines in their Halloween costumes - some were crawlers, some were walkers and some were even runners. Jonah even put up with his skeleton costume without complaining. It was so much fun! The next day we went to a Halloween/birthday party for one of his playgroup friends - this time Jonah sported a monkey costume. The hit of the party was the ball pit... I couldn't get Jonah out of it the entire time we were there! He even managed to shove a fistful of orange cupcake frosting into his mouth before I caught him.

Speaking of sweets... I think I made it through this Halloween and only consumed a handful of candy! Truly a feat in and of itself! This was most likely because we had not one, not two, but NO trick-or-treaters at our new house. I thought at the very least our next door neighbors children would come by, but no. It was super quiet. I ended up sending the candy I'd bought to work with Michael. Otherwise, I would have eaten it all!

Following Halloween though, things went downhill. I managed to have a recurrence of the MRSA that I got from the hospital when Jonah was born - that was no fun. And of course, when it rains it pours, so I came down with a cold, which I managed to pass to Jonah. And just as we were both in the full swing of our sniffles, our pug started having accidents in the house - one of which required an emergency vet visit so Michael had to hurry home from work (at 9pm...) to take her while I stayed home with Jonah... The vet pronounced that she had bladder stones and a urinary tract infection. You might as well as posted a big fat quarantine sign outside our house. We were officially a mess! After some more time meeting with different vets to figure out how to treat Ziva, she finally had surgery. Honestly, it couldn't have been scheduled in a more timely way because just as I was bringing her to the surgeon her stones clogged her tract and the surgery had to be more extensive. She had to spend two nights at the hospital. Our house was way too quiet in her absence - I couldn't sleep. I missed her snorting and snoring at night. But she recovered well at the hospital and before we knew it she was home again - yay! It took a few days to get things back into a manageable routine, which seemed to come together just in time for our house guests...

The WWW ladies descended on the Harwin household with a vengeance (and more importantly with wine!)... and with their children. It was a blast! Who are the WWW ladies you may ask - well years ago I worked with a bunch of fabulous women at the US Chamber and we grew to be very dear friends. Our little group expanded to include a few roommates and college friends and over the past decade (yes, its really been about that long!) we've managed to stay in touch. Each year in the fall, and sometimes in the spring, we try to get everyone together and either take a trip or gather at someone's home, to catch up. I wasn't able to attend last year's trip to Nashville as I was too pregnant, but this year we had this new big house and well, Michael was supposed to be out of town for work. Most of the ladies were able to come over for some or part of the weekend and we even managed to skype in one person who couldn't make it and one of the ladies' new boyfriend (all the way from Kazakhstan!). It was so much fun to see everyone, catch up, and watch our kids play together! Its really amazing that our group has remained close after all these years. Most of us have moved on to different jobs, some to entirely different careers, a few got married and had children, several have moved away from DC (and in my case back), and some of us are now home-owners. Our lives are pointing us in different directions, but we always stay rooted through one another. To me, that's the perfect recipe for life-long friendship!

Around this time, I headed over to the American University campus to give a lecture on corporate fundraising to the Arts Management students. This was the 3rd year I've been privileged to lecture for the program and I have a lot of fun approaching fundraising from such a different perspective. Its totally different to look at it all from an educational viewpoint than to be deep in the trenches asking for the gifts. Hopefully, my little contribution to the field of corporate giving will help someone out someday! In the meantime, I'm hoping to give back to my own community by participating on a grants advisory panel for my county. I met with the coordinator and should hear this week whether they will need my assistance or not. I think it would be a fun way to stay engaged and learn more about the non-profits in our area.

As for the next big affair in our house, we decided to host Thanksgiving this year. This holiday is a big one for my family and is pretty much centered around one thing: apple pie. And not just any apple pie, but completely homemade by my mom from my great grandmother's recipe. Flaky, light crust, with sweet tender apples... Mmmmm... I spend all year dreaming about this pie. I can make it and have in the past, but the sheer emotional joy of eating her pie after stuffing myself with salad, yams, turkey, etc. is a unique experience. Ok, enough about food. Thanksgiving was also fun because we indoctrinated my aunt and uncle into the world of Wii. My aunt, who is so technologically un-savvy managed to become a pro Wii bowler in just a few short games. I'm worried we created an addict... as is my uncle - the computer genius who managed to figure out how to play every game sitting down. Leave it to him to defy the purpose of Wii and still succeed at winning the games!

All of this entertaining was really just a warm up though for the biggest event of 2009 - Jonah's first birthday. I can't believe my little man is one, he's walking (practically running really) everywhere, babbling up a storm (usually in response to food of course!), and clapped for the very first time upon receiving his piece of birthday cake. It was a priceless moment - and one that was shared by his grandparents (all 6 of them!), his aunts, his cousin, his great grandmothers, some of our very best friends, and his many friends from play group and beyond. Jonah is one popular guy and we had a blast!

So, now we are whole-heartedly into the holiday season and I'm getting ready to set up for hanukkah and pack for our annual winter trip to FL where we will be able to visit family and watch our Northwestern Wildcats kick Auburn's butt at the Outback Bowl. Michael's work load has dwindled down, so we are finally getting to see more of him... all in all a great way to close a fantastic year. I can't complain in the least!

Time flies...

I'm not a scientist or anything, but I do honestly believe that time passes faster as we get older. Either I'm getting slower, the clocks in our house are on some kind of super speed, or maybe its both!

This past weekend I attended my 10 year college reunion. Amazingly enough no one seems to have changed that dramatically. Yes, people have gotten married, gotten divorced, had kids, bought homes, changed jobs, etc. But essentially, the core of who we all were as individuals and as a collective seems to not have changed a bit. We still gravitated to the same groups of people, looked around at each other to pass judgment (both good and bad), and we pretty much look the same. At least I thought so... but honestly Facebook has changed how I felt at my 10 year reunion versus at my 5 year reunion. 5 years ago I don't even think Facebook existed and if it did, well then I wasn't aware of it. Now, I'm pretty much all caught up on the "where are you living, did you get married to so-and-so, do you have kids, where are you working, etc." scoop on a day-to-day basis. So, I was saved a number of awkward 3-5 minute conversations wondering how I could get all the juicy info, and move on to the next person I recognized across the room. But that created even more awkwardness...

Was I supposed to go up to these people and talk to them anyway? It's not like I remember having longer than 3-5 minute conversations with most of them during the 4 years we were in school together. Why start now? So I did what any good 30-something would do... I grabbed a glass of wine and spent time with my closer friends who had all gathered in the same location coming from across the country to say hi, share some laughs, and take some group photos. All of which helped me come to terms with the fact that the 10 years since college went by in a flash and I'm sure the next 10 will go by even faster.

Now, as I sit here making my son's 1st birthday party invitations, I only hope that time will go more slowly so I can savor his last days as a baby. Next thing I know, he'll be going to his 10 year reunion!

Off to work I go... or not.

Yesterday I went to get my hair colored and cut... the first time in more than 6 months.  First of all, I feel like a new person again.  It's amazing how such a small change can affect your mood! I feel a little guilty because I didn't go to my friend who is my regular stylist, but I couldn't get in to her limited schedule when I had the time (aka babysitter Wednesday!) to go. It was interesting to go to someone new.  It turns out we had a lot to talk about!

We started off the conversation with the usual discussion about what I wanted done to my hair, a little celebrity gossip, and some background about ourselves.  As our conversation evolved we came to the interesting realization that we are constantly asked the same question these days... "So, are you going back to work?" Otherwise known as "Is this what you want to do for the rest of your life?" Ahhhhh, so many people ask me this since I have a graduate degree and am now a stay-at-home mom.  I guess it's a fair question and to be honest, I would probably (and most likely have in the past...) ask it of my friends who are in the same situation. As I get ready to head to my 10-year college reunion next weekend I know I'd better prepare my canned response because I KNOW I will be asked this by pretty much everyone I run into.

There are so many ways I can respond.  I mean, there's the strictly logical perspective: my career has been to work for small arts organizations and they don't have the ability to pay a salary that generally warrants the hours one puts in or cover the costs and challenges of childcare these days. There's the emotional response: motherhood has totally changed my perspective on life and I don't know that continuing my previous career will fulfill my new outlook. There's the intellectual response: I was no longer challenged by my professional choices and decided to take my child-bearing years to re-evaluate my career choice. And of course, the "I'm a mommy first and foremost" response: I love my baby and want to spend as much time as possible with him.

Frankly, each one covers about 100% of my decision to stay home. There is no simple canned response. I enjoy being home and watching each developmental change my son goes through - big and small. Additionally, I really haven't been challenged by my job for a while; I know how to achieve success doing what I did but found the most challenging part to be effectively coping with coworkers who didn't understand my job or what it took to succeed in my specialization (whatever happened to a team-oriented supportive work environment - are those totally dead now?! everyplace I seem to work hires lots of "throw your colleagues under the bus to save your own butt" types). And of course, motherhood has totally changed my perspective on life - its not all hype, it really does happen. For me, it even kicked in when I was pregnant! Thank goodness, because when I realized what it would cost to hire a flexible nanny or find a daycare to take my son I realized that I would be making mere pennies and adding more stress to my life trying to schedule his care than joy by going back to work in a position that didn't fulfill my dreams.

So, I took a gamble. I shook the magic 8 ball and all signs pointed to "stay at home". To be honest I really do love it. I'm very lucky that my wonderful husband makes enough that we can afford for me to stay home.  Don't get me wrong, there are definitely days when I wish I could go to an office, sit in a cubicle and be on the computer or in meetings all day (fyi... these days usually happen to coincide with Jonah's teething or fussy days). But overall, I am really happy taking care of my family. And by all accounts, motherhood is a full-time job! 

Will I do this forever? I don't know. You'll have to keep reading to find out, I guess!

Independence Day

There are so many thoughts running through my mind and so much I would like to share, that tonight I am struggling a bit with what to type here. For starters, I'll just say that my grandmother passed away on Wednesday night, not quite 12 hours after I saw her that afternoon. I know she is better off where she is now and that she will forever be Jonah's guardian angel.  With that I can begin to come to terms with her passing. 

This weekend, we were lucky enough to have a visit from two of Jonah's (6) grandparents.  What a lucky kid, right?! Since my dearest husband is out of town for work for a week (starting this past Saturday morning, poor guy!), I had a chance to bond with my in-laws on my own.  We had quite the philosophical conversation last night over dinner and a couple glasses of wine after putting my son to bed. We discussed the challenges of raising children at any age and the importance of encouraging them to be independent human beings - something I feel very strongly about as well because my parents taught me to value this too, esp. since I am an only child.

How do you go about instilling this in your children from the beginning of their lives?  Afterall, I spend most of my time worrying about him, even when he's just sleeping in the next room and I can see him on our high-tech video monitor... and according to my mother, this never stops.  Bring on the psychotherapists now! I think along with working with my husband to ensure Jonah is capable of someday taking care of himself, I am going to have to also work on how to keep myself sane since all I want to do is hold on to him tightly 24 hours a day. Too bad he's a squirmy little boy and only cuddles when he's tired or sick. Looks like he's already exhibiting his own sense of independence!